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Brief communication

A proteinuria cut-off level of 0.7 g /day


after 12 months of treatment best
predicts long-term renal outcome
in lupus nephritis: data from the
MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial
Farah Tamirou,1 Bernard R Lauwerys,1 Maria Dall’Era,2 Meggan Mackay,3
Brad Rovin,4 Ricard Cervera,5 Frédéric A Houssiau,1 on behalf of the MAINTAIN
Nephritis Trial investigators

To cite: Tamirou F, ABSTRACT disease manifestation of systemic lupus ery-


Lauwerys BR, Dall’Era M, Background: Although an early decrease in thematosus, impacting quality of life and sur-
et al. A proteinuria cut-off
level of 0.7 g /day after
proteinuria has been correlated with good long-term vival.1 Identification of short-term prognostic
renal outcome in lupus nephritis (LN), studies aimed at factors predictive of poor long-term outcome
12 months of treatment best
predicts long-term renal
defining a cut-off proteinuria value are missing, except in lupus nephritis (LN) would be most
a recent analysis performed on patients randomised in
outcome in lupus nephritis: welcome, especially to fine-tune the intensity
data from the MAINTAIN the Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial, demonstrating that a
target value of 0.8 g/day at month 12 optimised
and duration of immunosuppressive (IS)
Nephritis Trial. Lupus
Science & Medicine 2015;2: sensitivity and specificity for the prediction of good therapy. Another compelling reason is to
e000123. doi:10.1136/lupus- renal outcome. The objective of the current work is to determine optimal end points for clinical
2015-000123 validate this target in another LN study, namely the trials so that new therapies can be evaluated
MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial (MNT). efficiently and accurately. In this respect,
Methods: Long-term (at least 7 years) renal function several reports have demonstrated that an
Received 4 September 2015 data were available for 90 patients randomised in the early decrease of proteinuria after IS treat-
Revised 6 October 2015 MNT. Receiver operating characteristic curves were ment is predictive of a good long-term renal
Accepted 10 October 2015 built to test the performance of proteinuria measured outcome.2–5
within the 1st year as short-term predictor of long-term Taking advantage of the long-term
renal outcome. We calculated the positive and negative follow-up data from the Euro-Lupus Nephritis
predictive values (PPV, NPV).
Trial (ELNT), we were able to determine the
Results: After 12 months of treatment, achievement of optimal proteinuria target that maximises
a proteinuria <0.7 g/day best predicted good renal
sensitivity and specificity for prediction of
outcome, with a sensitivity and a specificity of 71%
and 75%, respectively. The PPV was high (94%) but good long-term renal outcome. Thus, we
the NPV low (29%). Addition of the requirement of demonstrated that a proteinuria of <0.8 g/
urine red blood cells ≤5/hpf as response criteria at day 12 months after randomisation was the
month 12 reduced sensitivity from 71% to 41%. single best predictor of good long-term renal
Conclusions: In this cohort of mainly Caucasian function, with a sensitivity and specificity of
patients suffering from a first episode of LN in most 81% and 78%, respectively.6
cases, achievement of a proteinuria <0.7 g/day at The current analysis is aimed at testing the
month 12 best predicts good outcome at 7 years and validity of this proteinuria target in another
inclusion of haematuria in the set of criteria at month patient population with LN, taking advantage
12 undermines the sensitivity of early proteinuria of the long-term MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial
decrease for the prediction of good outcome. The
(MNT) data set.5 7
robustness of these conclusions stems from the very
For numbered affiliations see
similar results obtained in two distinct LN cohorts.
end of article. Trial registration number: NCT00204022.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
The MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial
Correspondence to
The MNT is a European multicentre rando-
Professor Frédéric A
Houssiau;
INTRODUCTION mised trial comparing azathioprine and
frederic.houssiau@uclouvain. Despite significant therapeutic advances, mycophenolate mofetil as maintenance IS
be renal involvement remains a threatening treatment of LN, after induction with

Tamirou F, Lauwerys BR, Dall’Era M, et al. Lupus Science & Medicine 2015;2:e000123. doi:10.1136/lupus-2015-000123 1
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Lupus Science & Medicine

low-dose Euro-Lupus intravenous cyclophosphamide.


After long-term follow-up, renal relapse rates were
similar in the two arms, as published elsewhere.5 7

Patient selection
One hundred and five patients suffering from LN were
included in the MNT. For the purpose of this study, we
applied the same patient selection as for the corre-
sponding ELNT analysis,6 in order to make the two
cohorts comparable. Thus, 15 MNT patients were
excluded because serum creatine (sCr) measurement
was not available at or after 7 years of follow-up. Of note,
patients having achieved end-stage renal disease at any
time (n=4; at month 30, month 36, month 41 and
month 74) were included in the analysis. On the whole,
data from 90 MNT patients were studied.

Definition of good long-term renal outcome


Good long-term outcome was defined as sCr ≤1.0 mg/
dL at least 7 years after entry into the trial, again in
accordance with the criteria used for the ELNT analysis.6
Conversely, patients with sCr >1.0 mg/dL and those who
developed end-stage renal disease at any time were con-
sidered as having had a poor renal outcome.

Statistical analyses
We built receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves,
through MedCalc, and calculated their area under the
curve (AUC; CIs) to test the performance of each pro-
teinuria level measured at month 3, month 6 and
month 12 as a predictor of long-term renal outcome.
Briefly, ROC curves plot sensitivity (true positive rate)
on the y axis against 1−specificity (false positive rate) on
the x axis. The point on the curve closest to the upper
left-hand corner, identified by the Youden index, corre-
sponds to the cut-off proteinuria value that optimises
sensitivity and specificity. The AUC summarises the
overall accuracy of a diagnostic parameter. AUC values
>0.9, >0.7 to 0.9, >0.5 to 0.7 and 0.5 are highly accurate,
moderately accurate, low accurate or equal to chance,
respectively.
The optimal proteinuria target value at month 12, as
defined supra, was used to calculate the positive and
negative predictive values (PPV and NPV). Figure 1 Receiver operating characteristic curves for
We also calculated the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and predictive value of 24 h proteinuria at month 3 (A), month 6
NPV with the addition of other clinical variables to pro- (B) and month 12 (C) of patients randomised in the
teinuria, including renal function and urinalysis. MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial. Sensitivity (true positive rate; y
axis) is plotted against 1−specificity (false positive rate; x
axis). The proteinuria (g/day) values indicated in the graphs
RESULTS optimise sensitivity and specificity. Figures in brackets are
Proteinuria levels that optimise sensitivity and specificity for 95% CIs. AUC, area under the curve.
prediction of good long-term renal outcome
We built ROC curves with proteinuria values measured
at different time points within the 1st year of treatment proteinuria cut-off values maximising sensitivity (CIs)
in order to identify the target that best predicts good and specificity (CIs). After 12 months of treatment,
long-term renal outcome. Figure 1 depicts the ROC achievement of a proteinuria <0.7 g/day predicted good
curves for proteinuria levels achieved at month 3, outcome, with a sensitivity and a specificity of 71% and
month 6 and month 12, their AUCs (CIs) and the 75%, respectively.

2 Tamirou F, Lauwerys BR, Dall’Era M, et al. Lupus Science & Medicine 2015;2:e000123. doi:10.1136/lupus-2015-000123
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Brief communication

Table 1 Sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV for good long-term renal outcome according to target definition
Target at 12 months Sensitivity (%) Specificity (%) PPV (%) NPV (%)
Proteinuria <0.7 g/day 71 (48/68) 75 (9/12) 94 (48/51) 31 (9/29)
Proteinuria <0.7 g/day and sCr ≤1 mg/dL 63 (43/68) 83 (10/12) 96 (43/45) 29 (10/31)
Proteinuria <0.7 g/day and sCr ≤1 mg/dL and RBC ≤5/hpf 41 (28/68) 67 (8/12) 97 (28/29) 21 (8/38)
Figures in brackets are number of patients: for the sensitivity, patients with good outcome among those achieving the target/total patients with
good outcome; for the specificity, patients with poor outcome among those not achieving the target/total patients with poor outcome; for the
PPV, patients with good outcome/target achievers; for the NPV, patients with poor outcome/target non-achievers. Of note, only 80 of the 90
patients had proteinuria values available at month 12.
hpf, high power field; NPV, negative predictive value; PPV, positive predictive value; RBC, red blood cells; sCr, serum creatine.

Sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV These observations are consistent with those derived
As indicated in table 1, the PPV for a good long-term from the ELNT. Thus, Dall’Era et al demonstrated that a
renal outcome of achieving a proteinuria <0.7 g/day at cut-off proteinuria value <0.8 g/day at month 12 maxi-
12 months is very high (94%), thereby indicating that mised sensitivity and specificity for the prediction of
proteinuria decrease alone drives long-term renal prog- good renal outcome and that addition of the results of
nosis. By contrast, the NPV is very low (31%), which urinalysis negatively impacted early identification of
means that more than two-thirds of the patients not patients with good outcome, with a very comparable
meeting this target at month 12 will still experience a drop in sensitivity from 81% to 47%.7 We suggest that
good long-term renal outcome. such a consistency across two distinct trials strengthens
Next, we wondered whether adding renal function the validity of our conclusions.
and results of urinalyses would modify the sensitivity, The finding that haematuria did not contribute as a
specificity, PPV and NPV. As shown in table 1, addition surrogate for long-term kidney outcomes is not so sur-
of a normal renal function (sCr ≤1 mg/dL) to the prising. In a multicentre trial, it is difficult to ensure
target criteria, did not significantly alter the results. By that the analysis of the urine sediment is done uni-
contrast, requiring urine red blood cells (RBCs) to be formly. The number of RBCs/hpf depends on the
≤5/high power field (hpf ), in addition to proteinuria volume in which the pellet of sediment is resuspended.
<0.7 g/day and sCr ≤1 mg/dL as a response criteria This is not standardised and if the volume is large the
reduced the sensitivity from 71% to 41%, implying that cellular elements in the pellet will be diluted and the
59% of the patients who will experience a good long- counts inaccurate. The time of urine collection is
term renal outcome would not be identified at month important, and how long urine sits before urinalysis may
12 if persistent haematuria is part of the target, while affect the sediment, especially RBC casts. Additionally,
only 29% would be missed if proteinuria alone is used there are many reasons for haematuria in a population
as criteria. of mainly young women. The red cells specific for glom-
Last, we tested whether the NPV of proteinuria <0.7 g/ erular bleeding, and thus indicative of LN, are dys-
day at month 12 would be higher in patients presenting morphic and are called acanthocytes. While these cells
with lower proteinuria levels at baseline. In these are enumerated in centres that specialise in glomerular
patients, non-achievement of the target should be asso- diseases, in clinical trials all RBCs are counted, and
ciated with a poorer prognosis. We selected the mean these are often eumorphic and from the lower urinary
(3.3 g/day) and the median (2.4 g/day) proteinuria tract. We do not discount the value of urine sediment
values of the MNT cohort as cut-offs. As indicated in examination. If urine handling could be standardised
table 2, the NPV is indeed higher in patients with a and the reader focused on the elements of the urine
lower baseline proteinuria level.

DISCUSSION Table 2 NPV of a proteinuria <0.7 g/day at 12 months


Since permanent renal impairment is mostly a late event according to baseline proteinuria
in LN, only trials or cohorts with long-term follow-up Baseline proteinuria (g/day) NPV (%)
can unmask patients with poor renal outcome and allow
us to test the validity of short-term predictors, such as According to mean
<3.3 (n=48) 44 (7/16)
the kinetics of proteinuria decrease during the 1st year
≥3.3 (n=32) 15 (2/13)
of treatment. The data shown here, computed from the According to median
MNT, demonstrate (1) that achievement of a proteinuria <2.4 (n=37) 46 (6/13)
value <0.7 g/day at month 12 best predicts good renal ≥2.4 (n=43) 11 (3/16)
outcome at 7 years; and (2) that inclusion of microscopic Figures in brackets are numbers of patients, in casu poor
haematuria in the set of outcome criteria at month 12 outcomers/target non-achievers. Of note, only 80 of the 90
undermines the sensitivity of early proteinuria decrease patients had proteinuria values available at month 12.
NPV, negative predictive value.
for the detection of patients with good outcome.

Tamirou F, Lauwerys BR, Dall’Era M, et al. Lupus Science & Medicine 2015;2:e000123. doi:10.1136/lupus-2015-000123 3
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Lupus Science & Medicine

that truly indicate glomerular injury, urinalysis may con- Sacco, Milan, Italy; Daniel Blockmans, General Internal Medicine Department,
tribute to a surrogate end point of renal response. UZ Gasthuisberg, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Maria
Giovanna Danieli, Istituto di Clinica Medica Generale, Universia Degli Study di
The first lesson learned from these analyses is that Ancona, Torrette di Ancona, Italy; Luc De Clercq, Rheumatology Department,
assessment of microscopic haematuria should not be part Sint-Augustinus Ziekenhuis, Wilrijk, Belgium; David D’Cruz, Louise Coote
of the response criteria used in LN trials, in contrast to Lupus Unit, St Thomas’ Hospital, London, UK; Maria del Mar Ayala
the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) recom- Guttierez, General Internal Medicine, Hospital Regional Universitario Carlos
mendations,8 more so as interpretation of urinalyses is Haya, Malaga, Spain; Enrique de Ramon Garrido, General Internal Medicine,
Hospital Regional Universitario Carlos Haya, Malaga, Spain; Inge-Magrethe
complicated by delays in sample examination, the use of Gilboe, Rheumatology Department, Rikshospitalet University Hospital, Oslo,
automated techniques instead of microscopic reading Norway; Filip de Keyser, Rheumatology Department, UZ Gent, University of
and interference by menstrual-related haematuria. Ghent, Ghent, Belgium ; Michel Delahousse, Service de Nephrologie, Hôpital
The second implication deals with treatment options Foch, Paris, France; Gerard Espinosa, Department of Autoimmune Diseases,
at the bedside after 1 year. Patients meeting the 0.7 g/ Hospital Clinic, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Christoph Fiehn, ACURA Center
for Rheumatic Diseases, Baden-Baden, Germany; Marc Golstein, Service de
day proteinuria target at month 12 (ie, 64% of the MNT Rheumatologie, Cliniques Saint-Jean, Brussels, Belgium; Loïc Guillevin,
cohort) can be reassured regarding their final renal General Internal Medicine Department, Hôpital Cochin, Paris, France; Marco
outcome, based on the very high PPV (94%). In such Hirsch, Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg; Alexandre Karras, Service
patients, glucocorticoid tapering and withdrawal could de Néphrologie, Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Philippe
be considered, based on their well known contribution Lang, Nephrology Department, Hôpital Henri Mondor, Créteil, France;
Véronique le Guern, General Internal Medicine Department, Hôpital Cochin,
to damage accrual,9 10 although only a controlled trial Paris, France; Martine Marchal, Service de Néphrologie, Hôpital de Tivoli,
could test the safety of this proposal in terms of renal La Louvière, Belgium; Antonio Marinho, Clinical Immunology Unit, Hospital
relapse rates. On the other hand, treatment decision will Santo Antonio, ICBAS, Porto, Portugal; Regina Max, Department of Internal
be more difficult in patients not achieving the 0.7 g/day Medicine V, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; Patrick Peeters,
target at month 12, due to the low NPV: two-thirds of Nephrology Department, UZ Gent, University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium; Peter
Petera, Zentrum für Diagnostik und Therapie rheumatischer Erkrankungen,
these patients will still experience a good outcome in Krankenhaus Lainz, Wien, Austria; Radmila Petrovic, Institute of
the long run. In this respect, the fact that the NPV is Rheumatology, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; Thomas Quémeneur,
twice as high in patients with a low baseline proteinuria Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire de Lille, Lille, France; Frank
compared with those with higher values suggests that a Raeman, Rheumatology Department, Jan Palfijn Hospital, Merksem, Belgium;
treatment switch might be more appropriate for the Philippe Remy, Nephrology Department, Hôpital Henri Mondor, Créteil,
France; Isabelle Ravelingien, Rheumatology Department, Onze-Lieve-Vrouw
former compared with the latter. The kinetics of protein- Ziekenhuis, Aalst, Belgium; Piercarlo Sarzi-Puttini, Unita Operativa di
uria decrease is obviously pivotal in this decision Reumatologia, Ospedale Luigi Sacco, Milan, Italy; Shirish Sangle, Louise
process. Again, only a controlled trial could test the pos- Coote Lupus Unit, St Thomas’ Hospital, London, UK; Maria Tektonidou,
sibility that optimising therapy in partial responders First Department of Internal Medicine, National University of Athens, Athens,
would be beneficial, a hypothesis tested in the RING Greece; Lucia Valiente de Santis, General Internal Medicine, Hospital
Regional Universitario Carlos Haya, Malaga, Spain; Carlos Vasconcelos,
trial (RItuximab in lupus Nephritis with remission as a Clinical Immunology Unit, Hospital Santo Antonio, ICBAS, Porto, Portugal;
Goal). Luc Verresen, Nephrology Department, Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg, Genk,
We acknowledge the limitations of our work. Data Belgium; Laurence Weiss, Département d’Immunologie, Hôpital Européen
were acquired in a small patient population. Most Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; René Westhovens, Rheumatology
subjects were Caucasians (79%) and suffered from their Department, UZ Gasthuisberg, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven,
Belgium.
first episode of LN (87%). Further work is needed to
improve the NPV which was not ameliorated by the use Contributors All coauthors have contributed to the study design, data
acquisition, data organisation, manuscript writing and reviewing.
of a more stringent target, taking into account
additional criteria, such as renal function or urinalysis. Competing interests None declared.
Yet, the robustness of our conclusions stems from the Patient consent Obtained.
very similar results obtained in two prospectively Ethics approval Commission d’Ethique Hospitalo-Facultaire de l’Université
followed cohorts. catholique de Louvain.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Author affiliations
1
Rheumatology Department, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Pôle de Open Access This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with
Pathologies Rhumatismales Inflammatoires et Systémiques, Université the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license,
catholique de Louvain, Bruxelles, Belgium which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-
2
Division of Rheumatology, Russell/Engelman Research Center, University of commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided
California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://
3
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, USA creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
4
Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio, USA
5
Department of Autoimmune Diseases, Hospital Clinic, Universitat de
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Tamirou F, Lauwerys BR, Dall’Era M, et al. Lupus Science & Medicine 2015;2:e000123. doi:10.1136/lupus-2015-000123 5
Downloaded from http://lupus.bmj.com/ on December 13, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com

A proteinuria cut-off level of 0.7 g/day after 12


months of treatment best predicts long-term
renal outcome in lupus nephritis: data from
the MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial
Farah Tamirou, Bernard R Lauwerys, Maria Dall'Era, Meggan Mackay,
Brad Rovin, Ricard Cervera and Frédéric A Houssiau

Lupus Sci Med 2015 2:


doi: 10.1136/lupus-2015-000123

Updated information and services can be found at:


http://lupus.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000123

These include:

References This article cites 9 articles, 5 of which you can access for free at:
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Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which
permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work
non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms,
provided the original work is properly cited and the use is
non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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